Little things
by esama
Summary: Yugi is rebellious, Sugoroku is regretful, Yami is sleeping, Anzu is tired, Jonouchi is unhappy, Honda is irritated, Bakura is temperamental, Seto is busy, Shizuka is blind and Atemu is bored. Ten Yu-Gi-Oh Alternate Universe drabbles.


**Little things  
**

**1. Whisper**

Speaking is forbidden. Not a whisper sounds in the halls of the temple, where priests and priestesses bow their heads down and hold the hems of their robes so that even they don't make any more sound than absolutely necessary. Sometimes the silence is golden and comfortable, during hour of meditation when the silence echoes with comfort and safety. Sometimes it is awkward and tense, creeping up and down the spine of the listener who cannot help but wish to speak, just to break it.

Yugi has not spoken for years, not since coming to the temple. He doesn't mind, he's had not been particularly talkative person to begin with. The problem is the fact, that he has not heard anyone else speak in those many years either. And sometimes while lighting the hundred ceremonial candles and bowing his head down in silent, private prayer, only heard by his own mind and the ears of his god, he wonders. What does human voice sound like? And, if he continues this ever vigilant silence, this undisturbed privacy of prayer and worship... would he forget how to speak all together? Will words forever slip from his lips and should he leave the temple one day, would the silence forever follow him?

In sacrilegious moment of defiance, he closes himself into his private chamber and, pressing his face against a pillow, says. "I have a voice." The words are a mere whisper.

**2. Ceremony**

Sugoroku takes the golden box down from its usual place atop a high cabinet, and looks down to it. It is as beautiful as the day he himself had gotten his hands on it, and as terrifying in it's complex beauty. Layered with complicated images and writings of languages long forgotten, it seems mysterious and almost wondrous. And it is, it truly is. It's incredible, magical and just as dangerous.

With the box in hands, he turns to the small child before him. Yugi, his grandson, merely eight years of age, was to inherit the box. Not in some future day when he'd be ready for it, not during the proper ceremonies, not with the right amount of pride and honour. No. Instead it would happen here where their small family had escaped, into nondescript country town where no one knew their name, their family, or their power. It was wrong. It should've happened with the proper ceremonies, and Yugi should've had several years to himself to prepare. But there was no time. Sugoroku was too old to risk the wait, and the only way to make sure Yugi would manage would be to make sure of it himself - by handing the task over when he still had the time to watch the boy's process and make sure that he could handle it.

"Here, open it," was the only ceremony Sugoroku had to give. He mourns it and the smallness of Yugi's hands as the boy takes the box and stares at it in wonder. All too eagerly, all too quickly, Yugi opens the box and unleashes the curse, blessing and power that their family alone possessed. And while the dark power spills out of the box like smoke, Sugoroku stands proud and tall and feels too old, too tired, too fatigued and too helpless. "Now," he says to his grandson who stares at the shadows in wonder and fear. "Now I will teach you how to control it." For a future Master of All Darkness, it is a poor initiation ceremony.

**3. Dream**

Yami shifts from a dream to a dream. His father, proud and strong, dreams of stony dreams where the floors are solid and hard and ceilings are high. In these halls, the voices echo, old conversations or perhaps plans of new ones, realistic despite the ethereal place where they take place in. Money, politics, schemes of every day life and every day work bounce off the lofty stone walls and somewhere in the vast hall he can see a table with people sitting in, the only people in the enormous hall, who are the source of the ever echoing talks. Normalcy in palace of eerie grandness.

His mother dreams softly, of clouds drifting above in lazy pace, of gentle breezes running through the grass and the tree leaves, of rustling of nature and singing of birds which sounds rather like music. Everything is gentle. But it is a dream of pain, old wound, as she relives the days when she was young and beautiful and in love and then when she is older and tired and dealing with a cheating husband. It's like a sweet poison or lace hiding a scar inside her, the way she dreams. She dreams of sandy beaches and gentle waves and a dead body lying in the shoreline, her own.

Yami shifts past the house and to their neighbourhood. He catches a dream of a child, bright and colourful, dream of running with a small dog, laughing and playing. He follows the ball thrown for the dog to another dream where a slightly elder child is dreaming of baseball. He shifts and glances a nightmare, dark and cold and sharp like edge of a knife, and quickly turns away from it before he can see the face of the monster holding the blade. He shifts on and on, past the dreams of the neighbourhood and to the city, in search for someone, anyone, who could wake him up.

He slips into a dream of a teenager, where the teen is laying on a school rooftop, staring at the clouds above. They look oddly like airships and bomber planes and falling candyfloss destruction. The teen looks up to him. "Dreams are what you make of them," he says, dream-purple eyes laughing and with a gasp Yami wakes up.

**4. Lost and Found**

Anzu is tired and hungry, and her feet hurt. The street seems cold and unforgiving as she walks along it, trying to search for a place to stay for the night, some comfortable looking back alley or perhaps alcove between houses, somewhere safe. In her hands she clutches onto the empty cup, the earnings of the day hidden about her body in various pockets to save what little money she had made from thieves. There are lot of those around, she knows. Way too many and she, a young girl tired from a day of dancing, is an easy prey for them.

It hadn't been supposed to be like this, she thinks. Her mother had always praised her dancing skills, saying that she surely would find a place to dance in high courts or maybe in festivals where people would love and praise her and she'd be living like a princess. It had not been like that at all. She is too tall, too thin, her hair is too short, her shoulders too wide, she has no hips to speak off and her dancing is wild and strange. The lack of good clothes or veils did not help - and daily she mourns the fact that her belt, with its chains and beautifully jingling coins, had been stolen the moment she had arrived to the city.

Anzu glances to her left and sees a sheltered corner between a small, strange looking store. It seems safe enough, small and out of sight and the store probably did not have too many customers. Better place to stay than near a tavern or inn, definitely. Sighing, she heads quickly towards it, huddling between an empty, half broken barrel and the rough sandstone wall. She'd stay there for the night, she decides, and then she'd buy something to eat from the market in the morning. And then... then she'd dance more. And maybe one day, she'd have enough money to make the trip back to her home village. Maybe.

The back door of the shop suddenly opens and a head of a young, oddly pale man sticks out. He looks first left and then right, and finally down at her. Anzu freezes, wondering if she is in someone's private property, if she will be punished for it - if it is too late to run away and to safety. However, the young man merely blinks at her and then gives her a puzzled look. "What are you doing sitting there? Come inside!" he says with odd tone if annoyance, as if she had not done what he had expected - which is very odd, considering that Anzu certainly has never seen him before "It's rude to keep people waiting, you know. Come on, come on. Business waits."

She hesitates, but something in his tone of voice makes her struggle to her feet. When Anzu cautiously approaches the door, she has no idea what she had found when she had approached the shop - and what, in turn, the shop had found in her.

**5. Mind**

It says Test Subject J on the top of the list which sits on a wad of papers right next to his cage. The paper itself lists last week's experiments in painstaking detail, every moment remembered and carefully recorded with the detail of a seconds. The dog, a well kept golden retriever, looks down to the paper, tilting his head rather comically to the side, his tail absently thumping against the bottom of the cage. Somewhat curiously he wonders about the experiments. He can remember them, easily enough. Needles, which was always uncomfortable. Odd devices that made his head feel fuzzy. Weird tasting food - water too, sometimes. They hid pills to his kibble often. They were nasty to eat.

He supposes that makes him the Test Subject J. They really oughta have come up with a better name - calling someone with mere letter is rather rude. The people performing the tests all have much longer and more complicated names, so why is his a mere letter? And why are they doing the tests to him, for that matter? They are irritating. He would've much preferred to be running around and playing a little - he vaguely remembers having a lovely yellow ball when he had been younger, it had been so much fun when someone had thrown it for him to find. It would be much better to be doing that again, and seeing if he couls find some interesting smells in the area... the laboratory always smells of either nasty chemicals or nothing at all.

"Here, I printed the new schedule," one of the people in the laboratory says, handing the paper to his colleague. The man reads it and then nods before placing the paper down on top of the others beside J's cage. Curiously, J leans forward to see it. More shots, pills in his food, few runs with the machine - autopsy is the last one. Autopsy? What autopsy? _His_ autopsy?!

"I'm starving. You wanna go grab something to eat?" one of the humans asks and together they leave the laboratory.

J growls under his breath. No way is he sticking around for his own autopsy. He'd rather not be autopsified at all. With vigour he attacks the clasp holding the cage shut, with every intention to escape. He'd leave, find a better place to stay, maybe a field to run in, a ball to play with, some interesting smells to explore. And he'd figure out a better name for himself. Something long and complicated. Like Jonouchi or something. It much better than J.

The cage door gives in under his efforts and with a woof of triumph, the golden retriever dashes for unautopsified freedom.

**6. Elf**

Honda loathes dealing with elves. Though all the adventure stories and tales marks them as fair, wise folk, they rarely seem to be at all fair or wise to him. In fact, to him they seem more arrogant and self-centred, looking down on humans like him like they are unworthy and dirty somehow, below them. They questioned his manners and methods and morals constantly like the fact that he hunts and eats meat means that he is an animal somehow. More than once they had questioned him about hunting their animals even though he always made certain he never did hunt in those parts of the woods. He knows better than to temp the fate with dealing them more than he absolutely has to - in fact, he'd be happier never tempting it all!

There is no helping to it, though. His lands share a border with the elven woods, so he is often forced to talk with the elves. But he still tries to steer away from it as often as he can, and he can count with only one hand the times he has personally contacted the elves. Once when an elven plant had spread to his lands and he hadn't been able to exterminate it. Second time had been when an elven child had gotten lost to his grounds; he had been nearly killed for that. Third time had been when one of the elven horses had decided to grace him and his harvest with its presence. And lastly, when an injured elf had collapsed to his doorsteps. Emergencies only. In comparison, the elves are quick to accuse him of anything and despite his attempts of not getting too familiar with his neighbours, he knows several of them by name due to being called to meet his neighbours several dozen times.

His human neighbours both envy and worry about his connection with the elves. Jonouchi, a local hound breeder whose lands are near Honda's, is curious, often asking what elves were like and if Honda has any friends among them. Anzu, who grows herbs and spices and teaches the local girls how to dance, on other hand is nervous about the elves and rarely if ever visits due to the close proximity to the elven woods. Thankfully the two of them are more open minded than some others, who didn't even do business with Honda due to him being under "elven bewitchment" and so forth.

But overall, Honda is adjusted to the whole concept, so adjusted that when a party of elves breached through the border to his lands, he doesn't even bother trying to get angry about it. He merely fetches his hunting rifle and goes to greet them. "What is this now?" he asks with exasperated acceptance, wondering if he'd be dragged to the elven court to answer for his crimes once more. It has happened so often that he has grown almost to like the elven prince who stands in his defence in the traditional court ceremonies. It is something of a surprise to find the very same prince among the party of elves approaching him. "Mokuba?"

"Pray, do not be angry for me for my intrusion, master Honda," the petite elf bows his crowned head. "But my matter is most urgent. I have come to ask for your assistance."

Honda stares in open astonishment. Coming from elf that is the same as getting down to both knees and begging. "O-of course. If I can help, I might as well. What can I do for you?"

Looking relieved, if only for a split of a moment, the prince turns away. "Yugi, Yami!" the elf prince says. To Honda's shock, he pulls forward two elf children who had been hiding in the hems of his robes - twins. Both has an odd two colour hair of gold and magenta and almost purplish eye colour, in striking contrast to Mokuba's and the rest of the party, who all have plain dark hair and eyes. Most elves Honda has ever seen had dark hair and eyes, except for the icy eyed king. The two children before him are the most colourful elves he has ever seen.

"Take these little ones and take them away," the elf prince says ignoring Honda's look of shock and pushes the silent, solemn children forward. "They are half-breeds and we cannot keep them in our lands any longer."

What Honda dislikes about elves the most is the fact that they never take _no_ for an answer.

**7. Angel**

Bakura tries with withhold the sneer that threatens to burst forward as he watches Ryou attending to their master. His twin brother is carefully settling a jewelled veil over their master's colourful wings, the colourless jewels in the transparent veil catching shades of the feathers as they settled upon them. The scene is like something out of a tale or picture book like the ones they had once upon a time seen in their father's books. Back before war and death and slavery.

"That is perfect, thank you Ryou," their master says while admiring his wings in the reflection of a large mirror in front of him. "Now, get me that net - no, the one which matches the veil, the colourless…. that's the one. I'm going to wear it in my hair. What do you think?"

"It will look very handsome," Ryou pipes back dutifully while carrying the silver netting to the man.

Bakura holds onto to his silver spear a little tighter and presses his lips tightly together. Seeing his brother running about and grovelling like some servant always gets him - especially since he can't help but be relieved that it is Ryou and not him. He would've more likely shoved the veils and nets and jewels up where sun didn't shine and their master would've been more likely to get back a spiteful retort than compliment from him. Which is probably exactly why their master had decided to hand over weapons and shields and armours to him instead and tell him to keep vigil. Still, this is not how things had supposed to go. They are from a wealthy town and a good family, Ryou had meant to become a scholar, not a servant, and definitely not a slave.

Bakura growls deep in his throat - and then quickly looks away when their master glances at him curiously. He swallows his curses and annoyance and tries to look like he is performing his duty. They haven't been in their master's possession for too long yet, and he doesn't know what sort of punishments the man could whip up. He prefers not to tempt fate, especially not since he doesn't know whether the punishments would fall upon him, or on Ryou. Some slave owners are like that, more likely punish the weaker ones because they cannot fight back so easily.

"You have something to say, Bakura?" their master asks with slight amusement.

"Nothing," he growls back.

"Come now. You must know by now that I am great supporter of freedom of speech."

Yeah, right, Bakura sneers silently and glances at the man who is now smoothing his ring and bracelet adorned hands down the breast of his fine linen robes. The man is really impossibly vain. Who wears so much gold and silver and jewels on themselves? "You look ridiculous," he finally says, deciding to test it since the man has given the permission. "You're like a god damned festival tree, all sparkly and decorated. I bet you jingle when you walk."

The man blinks in complete shock before starting to laugh. Bakura frowns and then cannot help but flush with embarrassment, as the man continues to laugh at his words merrily, like they are nothing but child's whining to him. Then, finally, the man quiets down with a shake of his head. "You know nothing, my dear," the man says, turning to his reflection. "In comparison to some of my kind, I dress with moderation. Thank you, Ryou," he adds, accepting the silver netting. "It's all about stature," the man continues while situating the netting upon his two-coloured hair. "What you wear expresses what you own and what you do. And I own quite a lot."

Bakura grimaces. That is true enough. Still it seems ridiculous. "You'd be robbed blind in some dark alleyway within few minutes."

"For that, I have you," the man answers and finishes his get up by putting on heavy pair of earrings. Then he turns to face the slave, spreading the massive wings, golden at the top where the feathers are shorter, and dark magenta along the lower part, where the feathers are long enough to brush against the floor tiles. For extra drama, the man even spreads his heavily jewelled hands, the wide sleeves of his rich robes making the impression of being second set of wings. "Admit it. I look good."

"Ri-di-cu-lous," Bakura pronounces with extra care and delights in the way Ryou hides a outraged snicker beneath his own, needlessly wide robe sleeves.

"Well. Perhaps," the man admits, reaching to take a especially gaudy piece of silver jewellery, encrusted with blood red stones. With it in hand, he walks towards Bakura. "Perhaps you ought to look a little bit ridiculous as well," he announces with a grin and reaches upward to place the crown on top of the slave's head. It settles heavily upon Bakura's messy white hair, pressing the usually wild locks downwards.

The man merely laughs at the heated glare Bakura gives him. "Much better," the man says. "Now come, you two. I have a meeting I am very late from."

**8. Shield**

Grinding his teeth, Seto shifts his footing to get more leverage and pushes all his weight behind the wrench. He can hear grinding, his instinct telling him that it is coming from the bent edge of the plate and that it is safe to ignore for now. So, murmuring curses under his breath, he continues to fight against the screw which didn't budge even under all his strength. Still he keeps at it, not willing to give up and get the electric spanner when he himself has screwed the thing shut without anything more complicated than a wrench and the power of his arms.

"You need a hand?" familiar voice asks curiously from behind him.

"From you, no," the mechanic grunts and lets out a huff as the screw suddenly gives in, making the wrench almost fall from his hands. Grimacing, Seto brushes his hand over his forehead, pushing his hair back. "Don't you have people to antagonise, wills to write, suicide to commit…? Anything?"

"My, aren't we hostile. Keep this up and I'll start thinking you don't like me," the other chuckles, stepping forward to look at his handiwork. "It is fixable, right? He'll fly, right?"

"Yes, no thanks to you," the mechanic says, peering up to the gigantic machine before them, before pointing the wrench at the pilot. "You've managed to dent him badly, but none of the critical systems are damaged beyond repair. Still, I ought to throw you off a building and run you over with a garbage truck for what you did with my _Magician_, Yami. And you'd deserve more than that!"

The pilot raises his hands in amused surrender. "Okay, okay, calm down," he says before folding his hands and looking up at the gigantic metal construction with pride and fondness. "It's not so bad," he says, reaching out and touching the badly bent metal which Seto is supposed to fix. "Considering the battle we went through, I got _Magician_ through it pretty nicely. You should see what Bakura's _Necrofear_ looks like."

"I _have_ seen it," Seto murmurs, shuddering at the memory. It would take months to gather all the spare parts to fix the damage done, and even then it is miracle if the thing would fly again. Thank god, Bakura is in Mokuba's department and he didn't need to worry about it. Too much. At least not until his little brother would ask for his help. Which probably would be pretty soon. "If you ever get my masterpiece into that state, I will kill you."

"I know, I know," Yami answers with a laugh and looks up as hurried footsteps head towards their way. "Marik?" the pilot asks and glances at the alarm light above the hangar door. It is silent and still - there is no attack coming. Confused, Yami turns to look at the breathless blonde. "You look like you've ran a marathon. What's the hurry?"

"They're here!" the other piloted gasps as he reaches them, leaning to his knees and trying to catch his breath. "The cute ducklings from Domino city!"

"Oh?" Seto murmurs, straightening his back. "The reinforcements?" With _Necrofear_, Marik's _Dragon_ and the _Magician_ all out of commission, they really need it.

"Can't really be called much of reinforcement. Those kids are barely out of Academy, aren't they?" Yami asks thoughtfully. "How many?"

"Four pilots, Mutou Yugi on _Silent_, Ryou Bakura on _Angel_, Jonouchi Wheeler on _Swordsman_ and Mazaki Anzu on _Elf_," Marik answers, coughing and straightening his back now that he has gotten his breathing under control. He continues with slightly more level tone. "They have their own mechanics with them, Mutou Sugoroku and Honda Hiroto."

"What sort of names are those?" Seto asks spitefully, thinking the names the pilot had listed. Pilots got to name their machines, of course, but who gives a machine meant for war such names as _Angel_ or _Elf_? Not that _Swordsman_ shows any better imagination, and in Seto's opinion no machine in their line of work is in anyway _Silent_. Not that _Magician_ is much better, though. Seto has never really forgiven Yami for the name the man had came up with when he had been assigned to his master piece. Sure, Yami had been young, but that only shows that rookies shouldn't be allowed to name their machines.

"Are they here yet?" Yami asks curiously. "I think we would've heard them if they had docked already."

"Well, when I said they're here, I meant… they're almost here," Marik laments and grins. "I thought you wanted to take a look at the docking."

"Yeah, why not," Yami nods. "You coming, Kaiba?"

"I have better things to do than to drool over new pieces of soon-to-be-scrap-metal," the mechanic snaps, turning back to the _Magician_. "Like fixing the damage _you_ caused. You two just go away. You're bothering me anyway. And don't dare to come back without some coffee and written announcement of your early retirement."

"Never gonna happen," Yami answers cheerfully, waving at him while heading off with the blonde pilot.

"Burn in hell," Seto shoots back before turning back to work. There is lot to be done. While continuing to work with the screws, he hopes the new pilots' mechanics were very good at what they were doing. The concept of covering more machines than he already was wasn't too pleasing.

**9. Horoscope**

Shizuka looses her eyesight at early teens, just when she has noticed that sometimes boys are more interesting than flowers and trinkets and particularly appealing candies. It seems like the world's end at the time, as her eyesight slowly fades and all pretty things in the world turn blurry and dull until finally even that is gone, and there is only the unforgiving darkness surrounding her at all angles. It seems like there is nothing she can do, nothing she'd ever be able to do. She cannot walk without walking into things and bumping her legs until her knees are sore, she can't do anything and even the simplest of tasks seem nearly impossible. She can't even eat without aid!

"It's gonna be okay, sis. You'll see, eventually," her brother often says confidently and for the first time in her life, Shizuka seriously doubts him. But it turns out that he is right. Eventually, she can see.

She sees that Jonouchi would play at the arcade that day with his best friend - he was going to break his previous high score. She sees that their father would buy one bottle more that day and that the bottle would shatter against the doorframe once it would be empty. She sees that their mother would meet a handsome stranger that day, and go with the man. The cashier in the grocery store would win a small prize in lottery. The woman in the queue would see her daughter for the first time in eight years. The bum down the street would find someone's fallen wallet and eat warm meal for the first time in two weeks. The taxi driver would get into an accident - a child would die.

It is as unnerving and disorienting as it is incredible. It almost makes up for the loss of all the pretty things Shizuka will never again see, to see ahead like she now can. She can't see more than one day's worth and never about herself and even then the things she sees can go differently with little intervention, but she can see something no one else could. It is bewildering and comforting and marks the beginning of a future she has never thought possible.

**10. Dragon**

Atemu dreams of gold and vast sands, of the sun's powerful, warm rays beating down upon it, upon his dark scales, heating him. He misses the gold and the sand and the sunlight. It seems like it has been eons since he has seen them, and probably it really has been. He dreams of the palace where he had once lived with a human pharaoh, of a pile of precious metals that had been his bed, of a beautiful chest plate they had made for him. He misses the chest plate, and the times when the pharaoh had let him examine the golden puzzle. It had been so fascinating to look at and he misses the pleasure of trying to find the end and beginning of the complicated pieces of the small, golden pyramid.

But it had been so long ago. He cannot even quite tell how long. The pharaoh's kingdom had fallen, and they had locked Atemu away beneath the cold stones to keep him from interfering. Then they had forgotten him. Tired and weak, he has spent the centuries since drifting in and out of dreamlike haze, trying to will the years to pass by quicker. There is nothing to be done in his stone prison, nothing he can do. He has certainly tried to escape, endless times. But the stones are solid and fortified with magic, his talons or flames do nothing to them. The exit is long gone - and though there is a door there, it is so small he can't even get his head through it. There is no escape, and as he is one of the immortal divine dragons, not even death comes to relieve him from his boredom. So, he sleeps. And sleeps and sleeps. There is little else he can do but sleep.

He is asleep, dreaming of jewels and vast open skies, when his prison is breached, when the small door is opened with a groan and coughing softly, a young archaeologist stumbles his way in.

-

Someone once said to me that Yugioh fic isn't a Yugioh fic without some childrens' card games. I beg to differ. My apologies for possible grammar errors and such...


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